


Stubborn like Shrapnel

by karrenia_rune



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: Sparring sessions with Tyr are much more interesting than those with Beka Valentine.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Wayback Exchange 2020





	Stubborn like Shrapnel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smaragdbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/gifts).



> Written as a bonus treat for smaragdbird's request in 202o Wayback Machine exchange.

Disclaimer: Andromeda is the creation of Gene Roddenberry and Tribune Entertainment. It is not mine, nor are the characters who appear here or are mentioned. 

"Stubborn like Shrapnel"

Harper absorbed the blow from the wooden quarterstaff on his own weapon, the force from driving him back a good five to ten paces back.

If he had not known by now that the other man was taking it easy on him, he might have been somewhat offended. 

At first, Harper had thought that he would get in a few rounds, make Dylan happy that he had found a productive coping mechanism for his bouts of sullenness over dealing with what had happened with his failure to save the Perseid scientist who had died only a few weeks ago. 

Under any other circumstances, Harper would have told Dylan off and told him to take his concerns where the sun did not shine, and that he did not need to worry because Seamus Zelazny Harper could take care of himself just fine, thank you very much. 

He had been even before taken aboard the Beka's crew on the Eureka Maru. 

Dylan meant well, but he did not know everything no matter how much he thought that he did.

Beka had backed him up but then she had left with Dylan for a diplomatic mission, probably another attempt for Dylan to negotiate another world into helping rebuild Dylan Hunt's vision of rebuilding the Commonwealth. 

But, that was really was Harper felt so out-of-sorts and angry, and down? So, here he was, sparring with his back-up choice. Tyr.

They had been at this for some time, perhaps for a good hour or two if his internal chronometer was correct. 

Harper was breathing hard and took a moment to not only gain his composure but also to reach up and wipe away the glistening sheen of sweat off his forehead. "Whoa, man!" he puffed out.

The very big, very smug Neitzhchean sparring partner stood rooted to the ground like the big solid oak trees that Harper remembered from Old Earth. 

"Do you require a moment?" he asked his bass voice rumbling in his barrel chest.

"Just, just, a sec." What did you weight these things with titanium alloy?" Harper had let the staff dangle loosely in the grip of his right hand and his shoulder rose and fell as he took in deep breathes of much-need ship-board oxygen.

"No, just steel. Is that really the question here?" Tyr asked, the look in his dark deep-set eyes impenetrable at first, but Harper, once he could breathe normally once more realized was a twinkle of amusement.

Tyr would rather have been stabbed over and over again with a blunt knife rather than admit it out loud to anyone; but if we're being honest with himself, which he often was; the motley crew aboard the Andromeda Ascendant had grown on him, and that was something that had never factored into his plans for not just the immediate future and beyond. 

This went beyond their mere usefulness, beyond a promise of mutually beneficial needs, and circumstances. Tyr did not often allow himself to speculate too much, but he was, 'fond' of the small engineer. going even so far as to refer to him as the "Little Professor." Why this should be so, Tyr did not know nor did he care to probe too deep into it; it simply was, akin to fire and water, and air.

And for the moment, if Harper wanted to spar, he was more than willing to give it his all, he just was not as sure if Harper was taking these sparring matches as seriously as he was. 

"We may resume whenever you are sufficiently recovered. Do treat your weapon with a little more respect. It is not a hunk of meat."

"Haha!: Very funny. So very, very, funny, Tyr." Harper was feeling better and considered again why he was doing this.

One late night when he and Beka were alone and Beka had been in one her rare maudlin moods and allowed her self-imposed walls to slip had confessed that she had both loved and hated that smoldering twinkle in Tyr's eyes.

Beka had likened it to seeing the ying and the yang of the big, muscular Neitzchean's nature, both the angel on one's shoulder and a devil inside. 

When Harper had pressed for more information because he wanted to know more and insatiable curiosity could not just leave it at that; Beka had dodged the question and he had agreed to let it drop.

Now, Harper had wished had pressed. Tyr had layers, and those layers had layers. Harper wanted very much to peel those layers back one by one, he just did not know if he would ever have the nerve. 

"Once more, and this time do not lean so far forward."

"Why? Because I caught you with your feet crossed and in a real fight you would have gone down like a felled tree."

We have been over this, and over this. You must learn to treat your weapon as an extension of your arm. And for another stop dangling your weapon from your dominant hand as if were...

It was a very rare sight, seeing Tyr flustered, or at a loss for words and a part of Harper wanted to milk it for all it was worth; yet another part wanted to capture it for posterity, and if it had been only, say, two, three years ago, he might have even used as blackmail evidence. That was then; this was now. He was a better person and he wanted to keep on being a better person. "Blah, blah, got it."

"Your are incorrigible."

"And you are one tough bastard," Harper grinned. "So we're even."

"I grant you, that a modicum of progress has been made, however, if you are ever going to get better more training is paramount."

"Is that your really sweet way of saying that 'that beat on Harper's session is over for today?"

"Affirmative."

"Good thing I'm stubborn like shrapnel."

"I have never heard that expression prior to now," Tyr allowed the smallest of smiles to cross across the planes of his face. "It sounds about right."


End file.
